


my tender heart tends to start to bleed

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9614507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Does this always take this long?” Krystal says. “Look, Felix – um, the detective from Scotland – he says you’re, like, a really good hacker, buthonestlyI’ve seen alotof movies about hacking and usually it goes a lot…quicker? So, like, I’m not saying you’rebadat it, I’m just – I’m, like, wondering?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YaYaSestrahood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaYaSestrahood/gifts).



> HAPPY CHOCOLATE BOX! You put Beth & MK and Krystal & MK in your prompt, and I hope you meant that either was fine. Beth is not here. Apologies.
> 
> Also I bet it's a big spooky mystery who this is from, huh.

“Does this always take this long?” Krystal says, taking another long slurp of the smoothie dregs at the bottom of her cup. The rattling of the straw shakes MK’s spine, like Krystal is dragging a fork along the bones of it – bump bump bump – and MK doesn’t answer. She keeps typing away at her keyboard. It’s all terrible: Krystal’s comments, the endless awful sound of her valiant attempts at sucking the very last bits of smoothie up, it all stabs into her eardrums. But: it reminds MK that Krystal isn’t Niki. Which is good.

She keeps – forgetting. Her mind sees a flash of blonde at the corner of her eye, the tilt of that familiar nose, and her heart races with love before she can stop it. But. Niki wouldn’t keep checking her nails, popping her gum, fiddling with her phone. Niki didn’t even _have_ a smartphone. (She would have loved iPhones, though. Sometimes MK imagines Niki’s voice—

—MK always imagines Niki’s voice—

—going on and on about how cool Facebook is. She murmurs back to her. _Imagine, Niki. Anyone and everyone seeing you, like you are a light that will never go out_.) So her brain and heart restart themselves, every few minutes, and the two of them are fine.

“Hello?” Krystal says, shaking her straw around her cup. “Look, Felix – um, the detective from Scotland – he says you’re, like, a really good hacker, but _honestly_ I’ve seen a _lot_ of movies about hacking and usually it goes a lot…quicker? So, like, I’m not saying you’re _bad_ at it, I’m just – I’m, like, wondering?”

Her voice rises up at the ends. Niki’s didn’t do that. MK considers making a spreadsheet of differences, but that will probably have to wait until Krystal is gone.

“Hacking is mostly research,” MK says. “It’s not very interesting. In films, usually, they make it very fast so they don’t lose audience interest. In reality it is much slower. Like – building a trap around someone, and then hoping they walk into it. Not as interesting as flashing lights.”

“ _O_ kay,” says Krystal, in a way that says she doesn’t really care. “So, like…when are you gonna be _done?_ ‘Cause I sort of have an appointment in, like, an hour? My roots are _gross_.”

“Days,” MK says. She can hear the audible sound of Krystal’s mouth letting go of her straw.

“ _Seriously?_ ” she says, sounding completely betrayed.

“Yes,” MK says. “Seriously.” She hunches her shoulders a little higher, like they’re a barrier between her and this woman who isn’t Niki, isn’t Niki, _isn’t Niki_. “You are welcome to leave until I’m done.”

“Yeah, so you can hack _me?_ ” Krystal says. “No thanks. I’m not stupid.”

(Krystal Goderitch. Born May 5th, 1984 at Health Sciences North in Sudbury, Ontario. Lives in an apartment on Brunswick Ave. Updates her Instagram account with tenacious intensity.)

“Suit yourself,” MK says, and keeps trying to wiggle her way through the latest firewall. Next to her Krystal sighs. Seems she’s finally out of smoothie to drink.

“So,” Krystal says abruptly. “Why do you care about this whole Neolution thing? Because, no offense, but you don’t seem like you use eyeliner. Ever.”

Right. Krystal thinks this is some makeup conspiracy. It’s the one good thing Sarah Manning has ever done for MK, this insistence on naivety. But MK doesn’t know how to lie about it – how do you refashion a house fire into anything but a house fire? Niki would know how to do it. Niki and Krystal would get along so nicely. MK thinks, not for the first time, that it should have been Niki. Who survived this.

“I had a friend,” she says, and then stops. Her voice is wavering. Stupid. Stupid MK. She doesn’t know why she brought up Niki; she tries not to, ever. It’s the way Krystal is absentmindedly checking her hair for split ends – MK forgot. She just – forgot. Again.

“Oh,” Krystal says, looking up from her hair. “I – uh. I had a boyfriend?” She goes back to frowning at the ends of her hair, like she’s willing split ends into existence. “His name was Hector? They – killed him, and they, like, tried to stuff me in a trunk, and like – I don’t understand why you’d do that for _makeup_ , y’know? Like, obviously I am a beauty professional and I can spot a phony product from a _mile_ away but…still.”

“It gets easier,” MK says, “when you stop looking for reasons. They just hurt you, Krystal, and they will hurt others. That’s why I care.”

“No,” Krystal says slowly, “no, I think there has to be a reason. People don’t do things just to hurt people, you know? Even if they’re legitimately terrible reasons, like, there are _reasons_. That’s how people _work_.”

_I used to be like you_ , MK imagines telling her. _Do you know how long I spent trying to find out why he did it, Krystal, why he snapped her neck? Do you know – I thought that if I found a reason for it, it would make it all better. But I didn’t find a reason. And nothing got better._

Stupid: MK resurfaces from the depth of her brain and realizes she has let the silence go on too long again. She does that, sometimes. Talks to ghosts inside her mind and forgets that people exist outside of it. Krystal’s still looking at her, thoughtful.

“So when you said _days_ ,” she says. “You’re just gonna…sit there? At the computer? For days?”

“Yes.”

“What about, like, _showers?_ ’ She pauses. “Actually, looking at you, I’m feeling like showering isn’t your first priority. Am I right?”

“Yes,” MK says again, quieter than the last time.

“Ugh,” Krystal says. “Well, obviously I’m staying here the whole time, so I’m enforcing shower breaks so I don’t have to deal with your _stink_. Okay?”

God, MK wishes Krystal would just leave her alone.

God, she doesn’t.

“I have to concentrate,” she says tersely. “I can’t just – leave, the code will not keep running without me. Do you want to lose everything for a shower?”

“As a health professional,” Krystal says, tone completely free of irony, “I would absolutely not start a plan where shower breaks weren’t _scheduled_. Healthy body healthy mind, right? Like? How are you gonna concentrate on bypass tools or whatever when you can feel your hair grease, like, on your _face_.”

MK hunches her shoulders even higher. Krystal is either completely oblivious or just doesn’t care about MK’s obvious discomfort. She rummages in her purse, pulls out a pack of gum, pops a piece in her mouth and starts snapping it. She offers the pack in MK’s direction. It smells like fruit. MK shakes her head, holds her breath to keep from being overwhelmed by sense memory.

“I figured it out,” Krystal says. “When you’re done, and Neolution is, like, exposed, I’m giving you a makeover.” The tone of voice she says it in says that she expects MK’s desperate gratitude any second now. When it doesn’t come Krystal turns to look at her. “Um, hello? You not have those in Sweden, or what?”

“Finland. And yes.”

“Whatever. It’ll be fun! I am the _expert_ at makeovers. There was this girl named Cindy in my school, right, _total_ sadsack, never washed her hair, always sat in the back of the classroom but, like, this really beautiful inner soul, right? So one day after class I said, like, hey, you must be really sad because you’ve been wearing the same hoodie for four days, right, and—”

Krystal keeps talking, the sound of it washing on and on and on. When MK’s code pops everything wide open, and she has a handful of secrets, Krystal will want to brush makeup on MK’s cheekbones and polish on her nails. At the end of it she will coo _aw, you’re so pretty_. Oh, Veera. You’re so pretty. After this is all over, we’re going to be sisters. You can borrow my clothes whenever you want.

MK’s throat aches, and her chest. _Don’t you ever miss him_ , she wants to say to Krystal. _Doesn’t it_ ever _hurt_. But Krystal is still talking with a frightened, deliberate mania, about some girl that MK will never know or care about. MK looks back at her keyboard. She sighs, just a little bit, and keeps typing.

**Author's Note:**

> Whenever I see someone  
> Less fortunate than I  
> (And let's face it - who isn't  
> Less fortunate than I?)  
> My tender heart  
> Tends to start to bleed  
> And when someone needs a makeover  
> I simply have to take over  
> I know, I know exactly what they need  
> \--"Popular," Wicked Soundtrack
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
